[tamazoid]

Hi! I'm posting this for a friend. He just bought an unlocked T-Mobile BB 9700 from Asia... When he came back, he can't seem to use 3G for some reason. Tried looking for it manually, but still not working.

When he resend the service books, he gets a message from Rogers and T-Mobile.

What could be wrong with his phone right now? Thanks!

[JSanders]

The "for some reason" is that the Tmobile 9700 3G band is different than that of Rogers and ATT in North America.

There is nothing wrong with his 9700 -- it was designed that way.

An ATT 9700 will work find on Rogers 3G network, and vice versa, but Tmobile 9700 are on a 3G band of their own.

[tamazoid]

Oh really? No wonder... I'll let my friend know. I guess his phone's pretty much a expensive Curve 8900 with a trackpad now.

[tom0100]

T-mobile had to buy part of what was TV bandwidth (and some old radio wavelength) in the USA because no other bandwidth was available (the three other american companies all own the other 3g bandwidths). Their 3g was put at this band- 1700 and 2100 which are close to europes 3G bands but NOT exact enough to work with Europe but Edge isn't really that bad on a blackberry.

Part of the slow 3G rollout of Tmobiles was the slow work of the government (and private sector) to move out the the spectrum that Tmo purchased.

Yeah, It's just a nicer 8900 really but that really isn't bad. If he REALLY needs 3G...sell it and buy a specific one for ATT.

[JSanders]

@tamazoid... it was brought up to me by another user reading this thread that the Tmobile device 'could' be from Tmobile in Europe, not the USA, but from all I know, even the Tmobile - Europe devices' 3G bands are still not compatible with Rogers/ATT, etc...

So, to be completely sure of the device's origin, look at the help screen on the 9700 (press Alt + Shift + H on the device), and report back what the Vendor ID is on the device.

[anawrahta]

Tamazoid......tell your friend to hang onto it and use it with Wind Mobile when it launches... Wind uses the same 3G as T-Mobile in the USA.

[anawrahta]

Originally Posted by JSanders

@tamazoid... it was brought up to me by another user reading this thread that the Tmobile device 'could' be from Tmobile in Europe, not the USA, but from all I know, even the Tmobile - Europe devices' 3G bands are still not compatible with Rogers/ATT, etc...

You bring up an interesting point. However all 9700 models should work with Asian/European 3G, they will differ only in which North American 3G they support (1700 or 850 bands). It would surprise me if European carriers were selling the AWS 9700 because there is more coverage for the ATT/Rogers supported 850 band.

[MidnightDraven]

If its a t-mobile europe device, it would work on at&T/rogers etc, just not t-mobile US.

The only exception so far is WIND italy, who use the t-mobile US 3G frequencies.
The rest of europe use the at&t/rogers 3G frequencies.